


Understanding

by thesilvergoddess



Category: Mistborn - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: F/M, First Time, these two nerds are super dumb and i love them, well first time together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 11:36:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12652767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesilvergoddess/pseuds/thesilvergoddess
Summary: Vin and Elend are going north. It's the night after their marriage. There's a tent and awkward shenanigans.





	Understanding

**Author's Note:**

> I'm emo for these kids and they deserved better.

In a  _ tent _ .

_ In a tent on the run _ .

Essentially, anyway.

That wasn’t exactly how she expected it to happen, but there wasn’t any reason for her to expect anything else. She’d not exactly been the person with the most normal life. 

  
  


Sazed had laughed in his way at her suggestion of marriage (given whilst lying in Elend’s study, half bled out), but she didn’t really care. Part of her had thought Elend would have protested more when the moment finally came, but he hadn’t. She’d known for such a long time that  _ he _ wanted this, even if  _ she _ didn’t really… “get” it. They were together, no matter what, so why should the terms matter?

 

Her heart raced the entire time. It wasn’t a reaction to the fight from earlier, though. She was banged up beyond belief, and she was pretty sure that she wouldn’t exactly feel alright for a few days, even  _ with  _ a good long pewter burn, but she knew that this was the moment.

Elend had never been more beautiful to her. 

She’d seen so much in the last few weeks, suffering terribly from conflicts both external and embarrassingly internal, but now at least, she knew where she stood. She had a kind, radiant spirit lingering over her, helping Sazed as much as possible while he bandaged her up.

Elend.

Elend - sweet, wonderful Elend with his disheveled hair and his tired eyes - had been so shocked to see her mangled half to death from another mistborn, but… She’d seen the desperation in his eyes. She’d heard the way his voice shook quietly. She couldn’t stop feeling the same way. 

He’d kissed her. 

He’d kissed her like he’d never kissed her before. 

He’d kissed her like she was dying and like he was trying to hold onto her. 

She didn’t mind. 

Sazed had warned them against staying up too late for the journey ahead of them - that they would have plenty of time to be alone on the road, and ironically, Vin was more interested in heeding that than Elend was. She was too busy dozing off in his arms to have much in the way of aspirations. She was… so tired… and he was so warm… And for once, she felt safe despite everything that had been happening. She felt  _ safe _ with Elend.

Zane - no, she didn't even want to think his  _ name _ right now, lest she spoil the moment - was dead, albeit by her own hand, and there was nothing to fear for the time being. Nothing at all except the future ahead of them, but she didn’t have to focus on that right now. She’d just been married to the person she knew she loved the most - to the person she knew loved  _ her _ the most.

He carried her to his room, and she only vaguely remembered him undressing her and pulling his own shirt around her, careful to avoid plucking off any bandages my accident. He was a bit of a clutz, but he handled her so carefully. So delicately. So…  _ sweetly. _

She felt herself smile and start to say something, but he’d taken her into his arms again, and she rested against his chest. He smelled nice to her addled brain, and she thought she heard him muttering to himself, but she didn’t have the energy to ask. He rested his lips on her forehead and breathed against her skin.

She fell asleep that way - warm and safe and in Elend Venture’s arms. 

 

The morning was the rougher part. Getting through the first bit of it all. Saying goodbye to friends. Parting and not knowing what would become of any of them. 

Vin didn’t like goodbyes. 

Spook was coming too, but that wasn’t so bad, she guessed. At least he’d be safe. 

 

The day was long and arduous, trudging around in the ashfalls with no help at all, surrounded by a cloud of depression and fear, but Elend couldn’t be weighed down by any of it. He bopped behind Vin and chattered with Spook, almost like he was trying to convince himself that things would be okay, but there was something genuinely hopeful underneath it. Maybe he was still floating on the high from last night… 

Vin was sore. 

She’d taken much more of a beating than even  _ she _ thought she had, and walking around so much wasn’t doing her any favors. She didn’t want to burn through all of her pewter at once, but she needed to keep a low burn so that the injuries wouldn’t make her lag behind. She was too used to burning pewter, but she was only doing just enough to make her feel a little more herself - burning just enough to make her ribs stop hurting as much. She was having to trust that Spook was on the lookout. 

She knew that she didn’t speak as much as Elend might have needed her to, but she stayed close to him. That was as much as she could manage without expending too much of the energy that she needed so desperately to keep moving forward. 

_ They’re all counting on us. _

It was because of her, though, that they didn’t make nearly as much progress as they wished they had the first day, but Elend and Spook set up camp while Vin went scouting around the area to secure their position. Neither Elend nor Spook was too keen on her going off on her own, but Elend was obviously more secure in it than Spook. Even beaten up the way she was, he trusted her.

Vin smiled to herself as she threw herself through the air with a few lazily tossed clips, despite the way the exertions tugged at her injuries. Elend knew her, and he knew that she probably wanted to just go off by herself for a little while to get some quiet. She liked that about him, though. He could fill the silence as well as anyone else, but he knew when she needed quiet, too. Sometimes, she just enjoyed sitting beside him quietly, looking over his shoulder while he read. She didn’t really read the words on the page as much as she just enjoyed watching him read, sometimes mouthing the words to himself, sometimes tracking his eyes over the same spot over and over, sometimes putting his fingers to his lips... 

Vin found herself zipping back to camp as soon as she figured the coast was clear. 

 

Dinner had gone about as well as she could have expected with Spook being in such a mood, but that didn’t stop Elend from trying to be kind to him until he abruptly stood and walked away from the campfire. 

“I’m… gonna go scout the area again,” he mumbled, taking his food with him.

Elend opened his mouth to stop him, but Vin put a hand on his arm, shaking her head once. He settled back into his seated position and waited for Vin to speak. She waited, munching silently on her bread and stew meat, until she decided to burn a little tin to try to place where Spook had escaped to. Rustling that could only match the sound of someone shuffling through the woods with no particular heed to sneakiness was distant enough that she figured she could talk to Elend quietly. 

“He’s taking it rough,” she said, swallowing a hunk of food. 

“He’s not making it easy to help,” Elend grumbled. 

Vin shrugged. 

“I don’t really know what to do, Vin.” He sounded a little more genuinely distressed. “I mean, I know I keep saying it, but I can’t… hmm… I can’t Push or Pull on people. I can’t make them like me more or whatever it is that you do. I just do my best to talk things out. I don’t really know what to do when people don’t want to talk it out with me, so I just keep talking in circles about-”

“Elend,” Vin took his hand and looked up at him, and she felt a tiny smile creeping onto her face. He always overthought things, but it was one thing that drew her to him. “It’s okay. He’ll talk when he’s ready.”

Quiet fell between them again, and Elend scooted a little closer to Vin, leaning his head on top of hers, and she glanced up, smiling at his mischievous little grin.

“What are you doing?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.

She could tell in the firelight that his cheeks were just a little pink, but she didn’t need tin to see that. “Um… I mean… I dunno. Nice night we’re having.”

Vin smiled up at him. “Yeah…” Her smile faded a little and she burned just enough tin to let her see through the constant ash to the pinpoints of light she’d not known were there until… so recently. She’d been so blind in so many ways until allomancy. “I wish you could see the stars.”

Elend made an unpleasant sound. “I’ve got  _ books _ and stuff, so I’ve  _ seen _ them, but…”

Vin rolled her eyes and nudged him with her elbow, which she’d been told were basically weapons. 

“Ow! Hey… Come on.” But he still smiled, his eyes sparkling in the firelight. “I’m just making conversation!”

He pulled her hand into one of his own as they laughed, and they leaned on each other for a time. Something was tense in the air, though. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but it was very clearly there, and Vin could feel the conversation trying to turn somewhere that neither of them could get to. 

“Um… Good weather, at least,” Elend muttered, squeezing Vin’s fingers but looking distant. She could hear his fingers drumming on the dirt next to him. 

Vin looked up again, but this time, she knew her face was skeptical at best and judgmental at worst. A queasy feeling beset her guts, and she felt her body flush like she’d just had too much wine all at once. “Yeah…”

Another pause fell between them, but this one wasn’t so comfortable.

Elend broke it first by laughing a little roughly and turning toward Vin, the blush on his cheeks spreading to the rest of his face, and his eyes glittered. “I’m really bad at this,” he said, not giving her a chance to respond. He leaned in and kissed her lightly, but Vin pulled the lapels of his coat toward her, grateful that he cut to the chase and kissing him a little harder, which Elend promptly broke with another breathless laugh against her lips. 

Vin frowned, still too close to his face to see perfectly clearly. “What?”

Elend tilted her face up with one finger, and she obliged to his touch, lifting her chin. His eyes burned with quiet passion, passion so different than she was used to seeing. She’d seen him look at her this way before, even if she hadn’t known exactly how to place it. She didn’t like to go out of her way to touch emotions of those around her for no reason. She wasn’t Breeze, that was for sure. Those feelings had been for him and him alone unless he decided to share them with her. 

Vin had a feeling that she knew what that was now more than ever. 

She didn't need to say anything for Elend to lean in again for another slow, slow kiss that led his arms around her to hold her close. Her heart skipped a beat when his tongue brushed her lip, and she paused for a fraction of a second too long. Elend pulled away with a concerned expression. It wasn't that she wasn't used to this kind of affection from him, but something made her… nervous about the intensity of it. About the intent behind everything. 

It also wasn’t like she hadn’t thought about this before, but everything felt so… different now. Everything seemed so tenuously hung in a balance that might shift and crush them all under its weight. Everything was falling apart, and Vin couldn’t justify wanting to make love to her husband in a moment of self-indulgence. 

But she was here now. 

And so was he.

“If you don't-” he began. 

“No… I…” Vin snorted through her nose and looked down. “Let’s get into the tent first before how I decide I feel.”

Elend didn’t have to ask twice. 

He pulled her hand just enough for the two of them to start moving at the same time, halfway scrambling toward the tent in an effort to put a thin barrier between them and the ash that was beginning to fall from the sky. And Spook, but that wouldn’t do much to prevent him from listening in if he was bruning tin.

She put the thought out of her mind as quickly as possible. She didn’t really want to think about Spook right now. 

Especially not as Elend tied the flap shut and leaned over her, kissing her in more of a headbutt than an actual kiss, and the two of them laughed quietly to each other and a little bit to themselves. Vin reached up to Elend’s face, but he turned and kissed her palm with such gentleness that it made Vin squirm. She  _ did _ manage to rest her hand on his cheek, stubble scratching her lightly. He was always a little stubbly. Vin liked it.

Elend reached to her in turn and ran his hand through her hair, but his fingers snagged on a tangle, which pulled her back a little. 

“We’re… not very good at this, are we?” Quiet defeat colored his words, but he was still as rowdy as ever. 

“Practice makes perfect?”

And they collided again, a little more successfully than the first time. His warm lips settled on hers and pulled her closer with every single kiss - with every breath from his parted lips. Vin, who’d been propping herself up by her elbows on her bedroll, reclined and wrapped her arms around Elend’s body. She felt her knees creeping up and around him, framing his body poised over her. 

They bumped faces in the low light a few more times, sharing quiet laughter and clumsy moves. 

Vin watched him closely at first, watching his movements and his tension. For a second, she thought about leading him, but he  _ clearly _ wanted to do this on his own. Vin smiled mostly to herself as Elend started to unfasten the ties of her blouse, making more of a mess of it than she’d already done affixing it to her body that morning. Elend struggled for some time with the knots and tangles, but be managed to break her free of her terrible knot-work, and her shirt fell loosely open. 

He kissed her again and rested his forehead against hers. “Are you nervous?”

She almost lied but stopped herself. “A little.”

“I’m  _ extremely _ nervous,” he said, smiling.

“Elend, we don’t have to. We’re… not really in a rush, are we?” But she was a bit crestfallen even as she was saying it.

He responded by pulling off his own shirt and laying down next to her, one hand on her cheek. False start after false start. She put her hand on his chest to feel the slow, steady rise and fall underlying the quick rhythm of his heart. His body wasn’t well muscled nor lean. He was soft. “No… Not in a rush or anything but…” 

She looked up at him, but he avoided her gaze and took her hand in one of his, pressing it more firmly against his hairless skin. He spared a glance toward her for just a moment before looking away again. His heart beat erratically. 

“Um…” A shaking breath escaped him.

Vin leaned her head against his chest and pressed her lips against his collarbone. “Elend Venture. Without words. Call a meeting.”

Elend kissed her forehead. “Yeah…”

Vin pushed her face to meet his, and this time Elend didn't resist. He rested her lips on hers for a long second before actually going to kiss her, like he was thinking about saying something else before deciding against it. His body was tense against hers, moving a little less smoothly than if he'd been more comfortable, but Vin couldn't judge him for that. She promised herself more than anyone else that she wouldn't burn any metals - that she would just let this be an experience all on its own, but there was something tickling the back of her mind to burn a little tin just to pick up more between them. Feel a little more.  _ Experience _ a little more. She didn't have any metal in her system though, not that she didn't reach down and try to tap into it subconsciously. 

Elend shifted and pulled Vin with him, rolling Vin on her back, and she shifted under him as he settled his weight on her body, propping himself up the rest of the way with his scholar’s arms, which started to tremble very quickly. She didn't push him away, though, or try to pin him below her and instead lifted herself up to him, pulling him into long, slow kisses that turned into heated, desperate ones. The air around them shifted and changed from uncertainty to nervous excitement. Electricity and lightning arcs seemed to roll off on Elend’s fingers and charge Vin’s skin. 

The tent was warm but not uncomfortably so. Vin shed the loosely tethered shirt and her undershirt she’d been wearing, and Elend rocked back slightly, looking at her like he was seeing things in the light for the first time. Her cheeks set ablaze and she went to cover her body despite not having been entirely modest her entire life. There was something about the way Elend’s lips parted and the way his jaw dropped slightly - the way he looked at her like she  _ was _ the light, blinding and fascinating like the stars that he’d never seen… 

He touched her body so softly that his unsteady fingers only ghosted along her skin exacting a premature sigh from her lips and sending shivers down her spine and chills over her flesh. 

Elend smiled and said nothing, leaning down quickly and pressing their warm bodies together like he was trying to make them become one. 

Vin didn’t mind. 

It excited her. 

Her fingers twisted in his longer curls, and she nipped at his lower lip. 

Her body writhed beneath his, driven into more of a frenzy with every movement above her. It didn’t take much to get her going, and hazily, it dawned on her how little attention she’d paid to herself in  _ that _ regard.

Elend stopped, that creeping hesitation and uncertainty kicking back up again, and his hand trailed from the side of her face down the front of her body, pressing flat against her stomach and resting on the hem of her pants. He looked up at her in askance of permission to which she nodded once, and was completely nude in about two seconds, well, three seconds because her left pants leg got caught on her foot and got stuck, but Elend laughed at himself, blushing the whole way, and so did Vin. 

Elend hesitated on his own for a second, perching up on his knees over Vin. She wondered how it looked from his perspective. She never filled out. She was scrawny even now as an adult. Maybe he thought she looked like a child… Maybe he-

“Vin…” Elend ran a hand through his hair and obviously tried to keep his voice from shaking. “You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.”

Vin couldn’t stop the rush of heat that overtook her face. It wasn’t delicate. It was like someone had come at her full force and tackled her with embarrassment. She covered her face, but Elend’s gentle hands pulled her own into his. She moved on her own, this time, toward the belt of Elend’s own pants, and his hands rested on her wrists as if to stop her.

He didn’t stop her. 

After a few awkward knee-waddles and bumping foreheads, the two of them lay tangled together simply feeling their naked bodies against one another.

The momentum had slowed for only a moment when VIn picked up where they’d left off by pulling him over her again and wrapping her legs around his waist. Hesitation struck Elend again, making him more rigid than before, and Vin reached up to his face and tilted it toward her. “Elend, are  _ you _ ready?”

Elend kissed her in response, and the two remained locked in that suspension for another moment before Elend huffed out a shaking breath against Vin’s lips. She nodded, bracing herself for what she half-way anticipated would be a horrible experience based on the things she’d heard, but Elend was gentle. He rested his forehead against hers as he pushed into her, and she gasped sharply, not knowing quite where to put her hands. It was… a lot to take in at once. 

Her primary thought that drove her for about ten seconds was that she just wanted Elend to stay there, and that would be enough, but he puffed out another breath like he’d been holding it and opened his eyes to meet hers. 

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

Vin nodded too quickly to be believable and waited for him to make the next move, which was to kiss her softly.

“We can stop,” he said, already pulling away from her, but she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him back toward her. 

“Elend… I want this.” She took a breath and closed her eyes, getting used to the feeling of having someone else inside of her. “I want… you.”

He kissed her again and pushed against her, shallowly at first - almost not enough to move either of them - and built a full movement. There was once or twice where they lost the rhythm entirely and ended up laughing and trying again - trying harder - pushing each other harder. 

Vin rocked against his body, feeling his warmth all over and wanting more of him. Wanting all of him. And she found herself quickly coming up on cresting ecstasy in the tumultuous waves of her emotions. Everything felt so raw in this moment. Everything was so enhanced on its own without allomancy. Elend’s soft sighs in her ear and against her mouth. His lazy kisses on her face and neck. His rhythms and his pauses that made such a pleasantly syncopated beat. The heat emanating from them both like the hot gusts of wind before a rough storm. Except this was no storm to fear.

She found her sighs turning more vocally inclined into low moans, quiet utterances of Elend’s name mixed with some swears. 

Elend’s breathing increased its erratic pattern nearly at the same rate as Vin’s, but neither were professionals at this activity and their stamina was still low. Vin felt her own movements becoming less coordinated with every breath that hitched in Elend’s throat, every sigh of her name against her burning skin. The sweat on Elend’s upper lip had turned their kisses salty and even more exciting like his anticipation heightened her own, building and building until she barely panted anything comprehensible. 

She couldn’t last like this.

The electric charge building in her was becoming too much to handle, and Elend was moving too quickly for her to stop him. Her own breath caught for a fraction of a second before the rest of her body caught up, her mind’s haze distilling into a single point of ecstatic clarity before she dug her fingers into Elend’s back and pushed her hips against his, trying to deepen every aspect of their union. He was shortly after with a small strangled sound in the back of his throat, and the two of them crashed together in the raging waves of a stormy sea that dashed them together again and again, a mess of nearly misplaced kisses and soft swears. 

Their bodies moved together so uncoordinatedly that Elend fell flat over onto Vin at the comedown, and she laughed brightly, still sighing and twitching involuntarily. Elend looked up at her with a sheepish grin and fell back on top of her, leaning his full weight onto her and burying his face in her neck and hair. 

“I’m so embarrassed, and no one can ever make me get up again because I’m actually dead,” he muffledly mumbled into her neck, and she couldn’t help but giggle from the way his stubble tickled her neck. “None of my books told me what to do if you actually fell on your partner.”

Vin tried to crane her head back to look at her husband. “You based everything off books?”

She wasn’t surprised. 

He leaned up on one elbow very suddenly. “Hey, now, you see…”

Vin pulled him into another kiss that devolved quickly into laughter. He was still warm inside of her, and she squeezed her legs together around Elend’s sides, feeling equally embarrassed. 

“Oh, right, uh…” 

The sudden absence of him pressing against her was… jarring, and she gasped a bit, her eyes fluttering closed for a second. 

“That’s… Uh… I think… I think I like that,” Elend said, rolling off and beside Vin. 

Vin rolled to face him and smiled. “Yeah, I think I do too.”

“Vin?”

Vin was feeling very sleepy and  _ very _ happy to have her legs tangled with Elend’s in this tent in their strange circumstance. “Hmm?”

“I love you.”

She opened her eyes and saw him looking as sleepy and lazily happy as she, and she smiled again. “I love you too.”

 


End file.
